


I Can't Help It If I'm Still In Love With You

by robberreynard



Series: Asphalt Flowers [3]
Category: Fallout 3
Genre: Birthday Presents, F/M, Fluff, Shiloh Watts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2016-08-12
Packaged: 2018-08-08 06:51:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7747450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robberreynard/pseuds/robberreynard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ew, Butch likes a girl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Can't Help It If I'm Still In Love With You

**Author's Note:**

> Oh look, an old as balls ficlet from the kinkmeme.

Years they spent, hating each others guts, really for no reason. It just made sense that the two hardest heads in Vault 101 would end up butting. Butch was stubborn and mouthy, Shiloh loved getting a reaction, and nearly every altercation between them ended in someone going home with a swelled lip, bloodied nose, or a few hours in her father's clinic. Then somewhere down the line, they grew up. She was no longer the pigeon toed little brat with the messy pigtails.

She was the tall, slender woman that slunk down the halls of the Vault, bold and loud mouthed, and pestered everyone to point of loving or hating her. Butch found himself in the former group.

The first time he noticed, they were both eleven. Mr. Brotch had her test on a stack of others. Butch swiped it when his back was turned, his initial plan to make her fail, embarrass her in front of the class for the comments she'd made about his mother hitting on her father. But he found himself staring at her hand writing most of the night. She gave a strange curve to the 'S' in her name, and had doodled a T-Rex with extending robot arms in the corner of the page. The next morning he slipped it under Mr. Brotch's desk so he would find it before class started. She got an A. 

The second, they were seventeen, she was walking with Freddie. The kid seemed happy for once. Despite Butch's 'I really don't give a shit' attitude towards most things, he worried about his fellow Tunnel Snake since they were ten, and he first confided in Butch all the anxiety he felt, his true reasons for wanting to join the gang. Yet, as much as he loved the guy like a brother, seeing her laughing and hanging on his arm pricked at Butch's insides. It didn't go away until he saw Freddie with Susie Mack a week later, and even with the trickle of anger he felt towards him for dumping Shiloh so easily, he was relieved to see her alone again. Selfish though it might have been of him.

The next stand out moment he could remember was the New Year's Eve party that year. All of the youngest Vault residents gathered in the lower level, where the hum of machinery masked their rowdy drunkenness. They played old footage of the ball dropping in Times Square, a Pre-War relic, even though the clip was so out of sync with their clocks they ended up celebrating the new year twenty minutes early. But when the countdown on the video struck one, she grabbed him, yanking him so roughly he spilled punch all over both of them, and kissed him amid the roar of celebration. The encounter left him breathless and a little shaky, heart hammering. She ended up bounding off back into the party like it was nothing.

And the moment he knew he well and truly loved her was the day of his eighteenth birthday. 

No one had made much of a fuss about it, he had made damn sure his gang made no plans for something stupid like a party. He was too old for that shit. His mother had likely forgotten, spending the week in a perpetual state of hazy inebriation, and anyone that might have remembered hated him too much to get him anything. He told himself it didn't bother him that he was spending this day alone, watching movies he'd seen a million times.

Shiloh trudged into the rec room and threw herself down on the couch with little regard for anyone else sitting there, and stretched out her legs over his lap, laying back with a copy of Grognak the Barbarian hiding her face.

“Ever heard of a little thing called 'personal space', nosebleed?” He propped his chin in his palm, his prod at her lazy and more of an acknowledgment of her presence than a real insult.

“Shove a dick in it, Deloria,” she sighed wearily and pushed herself further against his end of the couch. 

He dug a charlie horse into her thigh, she kicked him with her heel, and the two settled into one another. Butch found his thumb absently stroking her knee. If she noticed, she didn't comment on it.  
After several minutes, she did however peek over the edge of her comic book at the projector running in the center of the room.

“What're you watching?”

“Hell, I don't know. I'm watching whatever was in the reel.”

A pause.

“Oh my God you're watching the Sound of Music.” She snickered and sat up, legs still sprawled across him.

“What?” He jolted a little, turning his attention to the screen to see a young man crooning to a girl. He had hardly even been watching, more letting his mind drift as images flashed on the wall. “What the hell, there were guys in uniform and shit!”

“And I bet they were singing and dancing showtunes,” she laughed. This was enough to tear her focus away from Grognak and she watched, grinning from ear to ear. “...Oh, right! I've got something for ya'.”

Suddenly she was on her feet, spinning to face him. Butch only realized she'd taken his hand when he was yanked up from the couch as well. 

He belligerently slapped at her arms and hoped to God he wasn't blushing, growling, “What the fuck are you doing?”

“You are sixteen, going on seventeen, fellas will fall in line!” She grabbed him again and pulled him forward, bumping their chests. “Eager young lads and grueways and cads will offer you fruit and wiiiine.” The tune didn't remotely sound like the original song. Smiling up at him, she withdrew a sheet of paper from behind her back, snaking her hand up to slip it between them. 

“What's this?” He took the page with some hesitation, only to find it was several sheets of paper stapled together. A crude tracing of Grognak graced the cover, the lines shaky and marred by a few ink smudges. Leafing through, he realized it was a panel for panel recreation of the first issue of Grognak the Barbarian. The one he had tried to take from Shiloh an infinite number of times, as it proved the most illusive of the series, and had been the cause of friction between them for ages. With a few minor alterations, at least. Some of the background characters were given handlebar mustaches and prominent hardons. She took hold of his hands once more and spun him.

“You are eighteen, going on nineteen, baby it's time to think!” She playfully knocked him with her hip. “Better beware, bitches everywhere, baby you're on the brink.” She patted his pectorals. “Happy birthday, Deloria.”

“Did you seriously trace every page from issue one?” he asked, flipping through the copy, “Wait, did you set all this up just so you could sing that?”

“No! Isn't that awesome? This was a totally happy accident. I was trying to think of some way to spring it on you though, so this works out perfect.” She slotted into the space beside him to peer over the pages with him. “The comic didn't take long, really, maybe two weeks.”

“You spent two weeks making me a birthday present.” He knit his brow. No one had spent more than five minutes _making_ him something. His last birthday, his mom bought a cupcake from the cafeteria and wiped off some of the frosting so it spelled out 'BUTC' with no room for an 'H'. 

“Eh, not like I don't have time in here.”

He swallowed, hoping to drown the butterflies in his stomach, and tried to play off the genuine gratitude he felt at the gesture, “Who would want a shitty tracing? Why not just give me the original?”

“Because fuck you, that's a first edition.” She crossed her arms, lips pressed in a thin line. “If you don't like it then throw it away or something.”

“Whatever. I can keep it the bathroom if we ever run out of toilet paper.” He tucked the comic under his arm.

“Really can't help being an ass, can you?” He really couldn't. For a moment she looked like she might actually be hurt by his words, and his heart jumped to his throat.

“Thanks,” he hurriedly grumbled, “For the thought at least.”

“Finally I coax a thanks out of you. Jesus, it's like pulling teeth.” She looked back to the screen, stance tense and _fuck_. He'd fucked up a moment between them. Every time she actually made an effort to reach out, as much as he would like to reciprocate, or make her aware how he saw her these days, he ended up spewing something insulting. More insulting than their normal report. For a moment her face scrunched up before she spit out, “You're only watching this because can't get the reel off, aren't you?”

He reluctantly nodded.

“I'll put on one of those dumb mob movies.” 

While she was busy with that, Butch returned to his seat to take a closer look at the comic. Now that he didn't have to worry about slipping up and showing how deeply touched he was by the effort she'd made. It was nothing but lines, no shading or color, but she really had gone over everything. Every scar and wrinkle on every brow. Excluding the ones with dumb faces drawn on, of course, a few with crossed eyes and tongues poking out of their mouths. If he looked closely, he could see a couples scenes of graphic sex acts being carried out way in the background of at least three panels. He had to stop himself from snickering and alerting her to the smile on his face.

When he reached the last page, his eyes caught on a note stuck the the inside of the back cover.

_'Maybe now you'll stop trying to jack my shit, greaseball. If you ever asked nicely, I would have let you read it with me. Hardly matters now, you are the proud owner of an extremely rare copy of Grognak the Barbarian. Keep it somewhere safe, could be worth something someday._

_Happy birthday, jerkface.'_

“All set,” she announced and he shoved the comic into his jumpsuit before she turned around. She caught the slight movement, staring at him in suspicion a moment.

“What?” He scrunched up his face in a pissy expression that only ended up making her laugh.

“Nothing, you're just being a weirdo as usual.” She crossed the room to the couch to collapse back into his lap. “Watch your stupid movie, I'm taking a nap. Try not to squirm so much this time.”

“I'm not a fucking pillow, I gotta move sometimes!”

“Just stay as still as you can for an hour, Jesus, acting like you got places to be.”

She curled up on her side, using the armrest to support her head. One thing that you could expect of Shiloh Watts, if she laid her head down, she was asleep within a minute. It was not long until Butch heard soft snores from beisde him.

The movie she picked was one of his favorites. She was probably one of three people that knew what it was. If it was coincidence or she really did remember that one time he told her, either way, seeing the familiar opening credits brought a smile to his face. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.

Already her hair had come undone from her sloppy ponytail to fall across her pallid face. The girl was messy, crude, unapologetic, loud, and a number of other less flattering adjectives. He reached forward to brush the stray strands of hair back behind her ear, fingers touching her cheek momentarily.  
The one girl that hated him the most was also the one that made damn sure he never spent a birthday alone. 

How could he not love her?


End file.
